With the Doctor
by Hope Wheeler
Summary: To ease my Doctor Who obsession, just a random first person account of a new companion for the Doctor.
1. An Adventure Begins

I really wasn't in the mood for any interruptions. Technology in general was once again proving itself to be my ultimate bane and my patience was beyond thin. Sitting in the university diner with my Dell finally in working mode, I hoped for the relatively peaceful half hour I needed to complete my work. Fate had other plans.

Familiarity rules would dictate that unless absolutely necessary, you wouldn't impose to share a two-person table with a stranger. But the man that I was about to meet seemed blissfully unaware of these standards.

Stepping through the doorway, his appearance as it was, I wouldn't have been very surprised if he announced that he was Sherlock Holmes. In spite of myself, my curiosity was already aroused. But after just a few seconds of giving in to my imagination, I returned to my critique of Annie Dillard.

I heard him ask the cashier for two cups of water, registering his British accent, far out of place at our small Midwest U.S. university. Telling myself I didn't have time to be interested, I tried to satisfy myself with the logical explanation that he was an acquaintance from our President's many travels. He became far more difficult to ignore when I heard movement close by and looked up from my monitor to find him directly in front of me.

" 'Ello." Raised eyebrows and a tense smile that was almost a grimace accompanied the greeting.

I gave a nod in response, a greeting I had formerly disliked but now found rather appropriate. After returning to my work as distraction, I risked a sly look around the room, confirming that there were several empty tables in the diner.

"Waiting for someone?"

I had been caught. "No, I replied uneasily. "You?" It was hopeful.

"Nah. Right on time."

I couldn't disguise my confused look and I didn't care. I pointedly returned to my keyboard typing slightly more forcefully than necessary, hoping that he got the message.

"Am I bothering you?" He was amused.

"No." And I was getting more irritated.

"Good." He then started tapping his fingers on the table as he checked his watch and I regretted being polite.

"Can I do something for you?"

"It's not so much a matter of what you can do for me as what I can do for you." While I was trying to process that, he reached over to the next table, grabbing a napkin and handing it to me. "Serviette? Promise you'll want it. Oh, and," he added, as if a side-note, "You may want to find a different table."

"What?" I stood and closed my computer before leaning over the table to tell him off so that everyone else wouldn't hear. "Look, if you wanted the table, you could have just asked."

"Oh, sure." I recognized the sarcasm as I often used it myself. "This particular table is rather ideally located…nice wall blocking all that terrible sunlight, fantastic view these odd little liquid containers…" He indicated the storage units for milk and soda that were located right by the table.

With his comment, the day and this man's attitude had forced me into an attitude that I had been trying to avoid. "You're right. It's perfect. So I'm staying." I sat down hard in the chair, just sitting, challenging him to get me to move.

"Can't say I didn't warn you, then."

"Warn me about what?"

I didn't have to wonder long - he jumped up from his seat, grabbed my hand and yanked me across the room. We collapsed on the floor against another table and chair set just before some kind of light beam came straight through the ceiling and burning a large hole in the table and chair we had just left.

"That," he replied simply as he offered me a hand up. "You…might want this now…sorry about that."

Frowning, I still didn't understand his preoccupation with giving me the napkin, particularly when his seeming prediction had yet to fully register. "What?"

"The water…"

I glanced down and discovered that in masterminding our escape from certain danger, he had knocked over the filled cup of water, the contents of which were now all over my pants. Without a word of thanks, a snatched the napkin and tried in vain to dry up the water as quickly as possible. "Who are you?"

"Really sorry about that. See ya." He ducked out the side door before I could say anything, but before I could complain mentally about that, he returned. Or at least his head did, appearing from outside the door. "I'm the Doctor."


	2. Big Fish

All else forgotten, including my essay, I followed him outside. I caught him racing up the hill the student center was built on; he had conveniently ignored the "keep off the grass" sign.

"Hey, you can't walk on the grass!" I wasn't normally a strict enforcer of the rule – I didn't follow it myself when in the right mood. The warning was simply a delay tactic – so I could catch up both physically and mentally. I met up with him at the top of the hill. "They're trying to get the grass to grow. It's hasn't rained." Even now, I'm not sure if I was explaining to convince him or because I felt ridiculous acting as the grass-police.

He didn't respond; his attention was focused on the clear blue skies of southern Ohio – that weren't quite clear.

"What?"

"The Doctor" finally acknowledged my presence. "Just what I was about to say."

"What in the world is that thing?' A crowd had already gathered and was growing near the hill, an increasing number of eyes were on the sky, and the alien hunk of metal that currently occupied it.

"Well, it looks rather Grifter-ish," he replied thoughtfully. "Haven't seen a Grifter Vibrode since, I dunno, fifteenth century, so I can't be absolutely sure, but…"

"That's impossible."

"Always perspective issues with you humans." He moved closer to the craft - Vibrobe, or whatever he'd called it - apparently for a closer view. "Advanced Internal Thought Structure, really nasty Irradiating Virus Defense...could knock out a whole planet in milliseconds." The Doctor walked farther away, examining the odd looking vehicle from the side. "Magnificent Cybronetic Electrolathe, absolutely magnificent. And I really don't say that lightly." This stranger seemed so enamored with the garish blight in our darkening sky that I wouldn't have been surprised if he proposed to the thing on the spot.

"What do they want?" My eyes, as from the beginning were glued to the machine, even as I followed him.

"That was a quick jump to acceptance."

"We humans tend to call it suspension of disbelief. Not that I'm saying you're not-"

"Human? Oh, I'm not." It was far too nonchalant for the impact of the statement, particularly the accompanying hands-in-pockets shrug.

"Okay. Wait-"

"Alien. Them," he nodded toward the sky. "Me, here, yes."

"Aliens." I repeated the word; it still didn't sound any more official than a bad joke coming from my own mouth.

The Doctor was taken back by my reaction. "You sound surprised."

"Should I not be?"

"Oh, I dunno, Christmas Day last year, giant spiderweb-thingy in the sky...Christmas Day two years ago, big spaceship, people standing on roofs….Cybermen, ghosts….Yeah, I'd say Earth is slightly passed the point of surprise on the extraterrestrial front."

"That was all aliens? We were told-"

"Ah...right, this is the United States. Government probably had a nice logical explanation for all of it, non-alien. And they never do learn that public ignorance really isn't at all helpful."

"What do they want?"

"Back to that, are we? One-track minds. Well, best I can figure, they're looking for a refill. Grifters are a rather strange lot, sort of amphibious. They basically live on heaps of liquids with specific chemicals, got them stored on planets all over the place. But I didn't know they had a reservoir on Earth." He scratched the back of his head in thought.

"Cedar Lake."

He looked surprised, though I wasn't sure if it was because of the possibility or that I had come up with it. "You have a lake?"

I shrugged, turning toward it. The body of water was more like a large, scum-filled, over-fertilized pond, but everyone called it Cedar Lake. My mind had already jumped to the conclusion that was filled with more than just film and fertlizers.

Without a word, he took off toward the lake, and before I realized what he was doing, he had dipped a finger in the lake and stuck in it his mouth. Brave. No, bravado, I corrected myself. "What are you-"

"Just what I thought," he stated, as if I wasn't even there. "Tetraharul sangithartun. Nasty stuff."

"You had to taste it to know that?"

"Faster than all your fancy equipment - which really isn't all that fancy really, no offense."

"None taken." I shrugged. Maybe there was a more appropriate response, but this whole situation seemed far too absurd. Besides that fact, I'd always assumed, that if they existed, any extraterrestrial lifeforms would find us terribly backward and foolish. "English major."

"Especially since you've never seen anything quite like this," he continued, almost as though I hadn't spoken. "Well, nothing this dangerous. Well," he paused. "Nothing this alien. Definitely Grifter. Tetraharul sangithartun, tetraharul sangithartun. Grifters. This isn't good."

Again my presence seemed negligible, but I couldn't resist the questions. "What is it? And what are Grifters? They're dangerous-"

"Oh, no," he replied, rather flippantly, I thought. "Grifters are mostly harmless. Compared to what they herald. Really, those Grifters are just big fish in a small pond. A small, really toxic pond."


	3. Into the Wild Black Yonder

The Vibrode as the Doctor had called it, seemed to be scanning the area without any observable harm to the ground or our academic buildings, eventually pausing as the first beams reached the surface of the lake. It seemed my uninformed deduction had been correct - the scanning rays seemed to travel back up to the waiting ship, which immediately sped to hover Cedar Lake.

"I knew there was something fishy about that lake." So it wasn't really that funny, but I didn't exactly have experience on what to say when aliens visit to refuel from your polluted body of water.

"Yes, yes, good on you." This Doctor didn't seem to be the best conversationalist. Hands in his pockets, his casual stance contrasted an anxious expression as, with a growing number of students and professors, he watched long metal tubes extended from the ship down to the water and the discolored contents of our lake - tetraharul sangithartun - start to be drained.

Always as quickly as the process begun, Cedar Lake was completely dried - revealing too many pens and pencils to count, a few computer keyboards, some notebook, and a Volkswagen Beetle. Successfully refueled, the Grifter Vibrode shot up toward the sky and disappeared into the atmosphere.

"So that's it?" I said, feeling rather disappointed that my first alien encounter was so lacking in drama. "They come, they drink, they leave?"

Walking away, hands still stuffed in the pockets of his ankle-length tan coat, The Doctor shrugged in response. "I dunno."

"What does that mean? Where are you going?" With my view of the world invaded by unlikely extraterrestrials, I wasn't quite ready to lose the one person - alien or not - who seemed to have some idea of what was going on. "I suppose that means you're going back to your space ship, or whatever."

"Yep." With that affirmative reply, he re-entered the diner, seeming to be only passing through and stopping just long enough to grab a banana from the pile of fruit on the counter. "I'm guessing these aren't free-"

Reluctantly, I fished the required change out of my wallet. "What's that for?"

"Potassium." His reply came out as though it were the obvious thing the universe, and maybe it was. Perhaps potassium was the key to defending Earth from these Grifters.

I frowned. "And that's for..." I had to ask.

"Eating." The Doctor shook his head as he continued out the door on the opposite side of the diner. "Humans."

Still following, I looked ahead in the direction he was walking and spotted an odd-looking blue box up ahead. "What is that?"

Without so much as a glance backward, he replied with obvious irony. "My space ship. You certainly ask a lot of questions."

"Oh, is that bad?" I said, matching his tone with my own sarcasm.

"No, actually, it's good. Very good. As long as you ask the right questions."

"And the right questions would be-" My train of thought was lost as we approached blue box, which, labeled "Police Public Call Box", looked hardly large enough for one person. "Rather small, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's large enough," he said, opening the door with a mischievous grin as he opened the door.

My reaction to his statement might have been quite different had I not been standing directly in front of the open door, with a clear view to the inside. The Doctor had rushed through ahead and was now sitting on what appeared to be a bench, legs stretched out onto what looked like the control center of the machine. "What?"

"Told you, it's large enough."

Only one foot in, I jumped back out, walking around the entirety of the strange craft. It was a physically impossibility - the inside was exponentially larger than the outside. "This is incredible," I announced ducking back inside to find him adjusting levers and pressing buttons on the inside. "What is it exactly?" Tentatively, I brushed the side of it with my hand - it seemed a strange machine-life-form hybrid, like nothing I had ever seen.

"It's a TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."

"Time? You're kidding. It's a time machine, too, then."

"You're taking this better than I thought," the Doctor replied to my observation - or was he just talking to himself? "Care to take her for a spin?" He just smiled, waiting for my response as though he already knew the answer. It was an overwhelming effect.

"It's too fantastic not to believe it, or to go," I answered, for the first time pausing to give him a good glance over. "You really are an alien."

"Guilty. Shall we?"

I couldn't help but mirror his enthusiasm. "Aye, aye, captain."

"Might be dangerous." The apparent seriousness of the warning didn't lesson his grin at all.

"All the better." I didn't bother explaining university life was beyond needing an upgrade in the area of excitement.

Apparently that was the right response; the Doctor's grin broadened. "What's your name?"

"Jane Brown," His normal question caught me off guard; he hadn't seemed all that interested.

"Well, Jane Brown, welcome aboard. Hold on!"


End file.
